Spattered! Aurora and Humbrol Monster Paint Sets 🩸

Hi Woodsy

For some reason I have recently been looking in to various paint ranges, and thought it was time to take a look at the Aurora Monster Colors paint set by Aurora Plastics. This has the copyright date 1963, and is Item No. 626-98.

The set originally sold for 98 cents. It is a lot more now – if you can find a surviving example.

The set contained six tinlets of Humbrol One Hour Plastic Enamel (Aurora were distributing Humbrol paints in America at the time), and a paint brush. The box is a work of art in itself – with a spooky old house, bare trees, and a lightning filled sky.

This set was clearly intended to be used with the various Aurora Universal Monster kits, although these look to be just regular Humbrol paints, with new 'monstrous' names. Each set contained a paint mixing chart, which was a revised version of the regular Aurora mixing chart, with a photo of Frankenstein's Monster, and line drawings of all his Monster friends.

Your Monster Paint Package Contains the Following Colors:

Bloody Red

Tombstone White

Midnight Black

Ghoulish Yellow

Deadly Blue

Each package also contains a surprise sixth color that is sure to bring out the worst in your Monster.

The range of colours in surviving sets seems to vary, but these may not be the original paints. One box I found on-line contains Fluorescent Hi-Glo paints, but again, are these original ?

There are also reproduction sets available, which contain much more modern paints, including one with Humbrol Super Enamels.

I also found an advertisement for a very similar set of Humbrol Monster Colours, in Airfix Magazine, August 1965 issue, which is a couple of years later than the copyright date for the Aurora set. This has a picture of Frankenstein's Monster looking through a window.

Again there are six colours – four of which are Vivid Fluorescent Shades. The colour names are different to those in the Aurora set - no mention of a brush this time.

I could not find any sales listings for this Humbrol set, so I do not know if any have survived.

Humbrol Monster Colours

Calculated to bring out the very worst in Monsters, Ghoulies and Weirdies and offered with malice aforethought to bring that extra touch of the supernatural.

Devil Red

Ghastly Yellow

Slimy Green

Ghost White (matt)

Vampire Purple

Witch Black (matt)

Price 6/9 (six shillings and ninepence) per kit, which would be somewhere around 33 or 34 New Pence in post-1971 British Decimal currency.

I prefer the Aurora box art.

Photographs mainly from Worthpoint; with the Humbrol ad from the Internet Archive.

Paul Adams from New Zealand